[geo] Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help - Steve Sherwood
http://theconversation.com/carbon-dioxide-hits-a-new-high-but-geo-engineering-wont-help-13840 Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help Steve Sherwood Director, Climate Change Research Centre at University of New South Wales This week, carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere finally crossed the 400 parts-per-million mark. The last time that happened was 3-5 million years ago during the Pliocene epoch, several million years before the evolution of modern humans. During this period the planet was 3-4 degrees warmer and sea levels 5-40m higher than today. Now, however, our activities are adding this gas hundreds or thousands of times faster than the natural sources that caused climate to change over Earth’s history. The concentration is measured at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, and is averaged on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. CO2 has increased since 1800 from under 300ppm, and has rapidly increased since 1950. So what should we be doing about this? One idea is starting to get a lot of attention. Instead of reducing carbon emissions, let’s tinker with the system to cool the planet off – a type of geo-engineering. For example, we might be able to lower the temperature of the planet by several degrees by flying a small fleet of aircraft in the stratosphere, spraying sulphur-containing gases. This would form a mist that reflects some sunlight back to space – maybe enough to offset many decades' worth of greenhouse gas emissions, at least as far as the global temperature is concerned. If only it were that simple. Geo-engineering is not a miracle cure for climate change. It is more like a tourniquet. It may save the patient’s life as a last option, but that life will never be the same. Doesn’t CO2 just heat things up? Recent studies, including this one published last week, and to which I contributed, show that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels would alter our world in ways that have nothing to do with global warming at the earth’s surface. Carbon dioxide affects climate by itself, and without its warming influence. Sound strange? CO2 does this by interfering with natural energy flows within the atmosphere. This in turn affects how the air circulates, and shifts rainfall patterns. It also reduces total global precipitation. While the overall change in precipitation is less than that caused by global warming, the regional shifts in precipitation are comparable. In short, some areas that were used to lots of rain will likely get less. Others will get more. What does this mean? A few isolated skeptics claim that our climate has strong negative feedbacks. Instead of temperature increasing indefinitely, changes in climate like increased cloud cover may act to cool the planet. Even if these far-fetched claims proved correct on a large scale, the new studies now show that humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions would still alter global rainfall patterns, albeit less severely. Negative feedbacks, even if they existed, would not stop this. Neither would artificial cooling of the planet. The geoengineering tourniquet? This new effect adds to the list of drawbacks already associated with artificial cooling plans such as the one involving aircraft sprays into the stratosphere. Such plans leave carbon accumulating in the system and acidifying the oceans. These geo-engineering solutions probably could not cope with the massive amounts of carbon dioxide released if all recoverable fossil fuels are burned. Still worse, artificial cooling increases the risk of even greater harm. It would have to be sustained annually for a century or two until enough of the carbon dioxide had finally seeped into the ocean depths. If artificial cooling were interrupted by war, economic collapse, or some other crisis, nearly all of the pent-up climate change would be unleashed in the space of a few short years, hitting some future generation when it is already struggling. There are ideas around to actually remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These would be great if they worked, but to me they look like impractical pipe dreams. Artificial cooling is by contrast cheap, relatively feasible and, to some, tempting. We should resist this temptation. You do not apply a tourniquet to a man’s leg if, with a bit of extra effort, you could get him to a hospital and save the leg. Bringing down carbon emissions is a matter of rolling up our sleeves and choosing to do it. For this generation to say, “we can't” would be a sad admission of failure for a civilisation that has achieved so much. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. For more options, visit
Re: [geo] Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help - Steve Sherwood
I find it hard to read past a sentence when it is fundamentally flawed: the word 'instead' should read 'as well as'! 'Instead of reducing carbon emissions, let’s tinker' How frustrating! Best wishes all, Emily Sent from my BlackBerry -Original Message- From: Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com Sender: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 14:00:24 To: geoengineeringgeoengineering@googlegroups.com Reply-To: andrew.lock...@gmail.com Subject: [geo] Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help - Steve Sherwood http://theconversation.com/carbon-dioxide-hits-a-new-high-but-geo-engineering-wont-help-13840 Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help Steve Sherwood Director, Climate Change Research Centre at University of New South Wales This week, carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere finally crossed the 400 parts-per-million mark. The last time that happened was 3-5 million years ago during the Pliocene epoch, several million years before the evolution of modern humans. During this period the planet was 3-4 degrees warmer and sea levels 5-40m higher than today. Now, however, our activities are adding this gas hundreds or thousands of times faster than the natural sources that caused climate to change over Earth’s history. The concentration is measured at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, and is averaged on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. CO2 has increased since 1800 from under 300ppm, and has rapidly increased since 1950. So what should we be doing about this? One idea is starting to get a lot of attention. Instead of reducing carbon emissions, let’s tinker with the system to cool the planet off – a type of geo-engineering. For example, we might be able to lower the temperature of the planet by several degrees by flying a small fleet of aircraft in the stratosphere, spraying sulphur-containing gases. This would form a mist that reflects some sunlight back to space – maybe enough to offset many decades' worth of greenhouse gas emissions, at least as far as the global temperature is concerned. If only it were that simple. Geo-engineering is not a miracle cure for climate change. It is more like a tourniquet. It may save the patient’s life as a last option, but that life will never be the same. Doesn’t CO2 just heat things up? Recent studies, including this one published last week, and to which I contributed, show that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels would alter our world in ways that have nothing to do with global warming at the earth’s surface. Carbon dioxide affects climate by itself, and without its warming influence. Sound strange? CO2 does this by interfering with natural energy flows within the atmosphere. This in turn affects how the air circulates, and shifts rainfall patterns. It also reduces total global precipitation. While the overall change in precipitation is less than that caused by global warming, the regional shifts in precipitation are comparable. In short, some areas that were used to lots of rain will likely get less. Others will get more. What does this mean? A few isolated skeptics claim that our climate has strong negative feedbacks. Instead of temperature increasing indefinitely, changes in climate like increased cloud cover may act to cool the planet. Even if these far-fetched claims proved correct on a large scale, the new studies now show that humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions would still alter global rainfall patterns, albeit less severely. Negative feedbacks, even if they existed, would not stop this. Neither would artificial cooling of the planet. The geoengineering tourniquet? This new effect adds to the list of drawbacks already associated with artificial cooling plans such as the one involving aircraft sprays into the stratosphere. Such plans leave carbon accumulating in the system and acidifying the oceans. These geo-engineering solutions probably could not cope with the massive amounts of carbon dioxide released if all recoverable fossil fuels are burned. Still worse, artificial cooling increases the risk of even greater harm. It would have to be sustained annually for a century or two until enough of the carbon dioxide had finally seeped into the ocean depths. If artificial cooling were interrupted by war, economic collapse, or some other crisis, nearly all of the pent-up climate change would be unleashed in the space of a few short years, hitting some future generation when it is already struggling. There are ideas around to actually remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These would be great if they worked, but to me they look like impractical pipe dreams. Artificial cooling is by contrast cheap, relatively feasible and, to some, tempting. We should resist this temptation. You do not apply a tourniquet to a man’s leg if, with a bit of extra effort, you could get him to a hospital and save the leg. Bringing down carbon emissions is a matter of rolling up our sleeves
Re: [geo] Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help - Steve Sherwood
Exactly. People seem to have already forgotten the following ... Wigley, T.M.L., 2006: A combined mitigation/geoengineering approach to climate stabilization. Science 314, 452–454. Tom. On 5/11/2013 7:26 AM, Emily L-B wrote: I find it hard to read past a sentence when it is fundamentally flawed: the word 'instead' should read 'as well as'! 'Instead of reducing carbon emissions, let’s tinker' How frustrating! Best wishes all, Emily Sent from my BlackBerry -Original Message- From: Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com Sender: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 14:00:24 To: geoengineeringgeoengineering@googlegroups.com Reply-To: andrew.lock...@gmail.com Subject: [geo] Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help - Steve Sherwood http://theconversation.com/carbon-dioxide-hits-a-new-high-but-geo-engineering-wont-help-13840 Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help Steve Sherwood Director, Climate Change Research Centre at University of New South Wales This week, carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere finally crossed the 400 parts-per-million mark. The last time that happened was 3-5 million years ago during the Pliocene epoch, several million years before the evolution of modern humans. During this period the planet was 3-4 degrees warmer and sea levels 5-40m higher than today. Now, however, our activities are adding this gas hundreds or thousands of times faster than the natural sources that caused climate to change over Earth’s history. The concentration is measured at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, and is averaged on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. CO2 has increased since 1800 from under 300ppm, and has rapidly increased since 1950. So what should we be doing about this? One idea is starting to get a lot of attention. Instead of reducing carbon emissions, let’s tinker with the system to cool the planet off – a type of geo-engineering. For example, we might be able to lower the temperature of the planet by several degrees by flying a small fleet of aircraft in the stratosphere, spraying sulphur-containing gases. This would form a mist that reflects some sunlight back to space – maybe enough to offset many decades' worth of greenhouse gas emissions, at least as far as the global temperature is concerned. If only it were that simple. Geo-engineering is not a miracle cure for climate change. It is more like a tourniquet. It may save the patient’s life as a last option, but that life will never be the same. Doesn’t CO2 just heat things up? Recent studies, including this one published last week, and to which I contributed, show that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels would alter our world in ways that have nothing to do with global warming at the earth’s surface. Carbon dioxide affects climate by itself, and without its warming influence. Sound strange? CO2 does this by interfering with natural energy flows within the atmosphere. This in turn affects how the air circulates, and shifts rainfall patterns. It also reduces total global precipitation. While the overall change in precipitation is less than that caused by global warming, the regional shifts in precipitation are comparable. In short, some areas that were used to lots of rain will likely get less. Others will get more. What does this mean? A few isolated skeptics claim that our climate has strong negative feedbacks. Instead of temperature increasing indefinitely, changes in climate like increased cloud cover may act to cool the planet. Even if these far-fetched claims proved correct on a large scale, the new studies now show that humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions would still alter global rainfall patterns, albeit less severely. Negative feedbacks, even if they existed, would not stop this. Neither would artificial cooling of the planet. The geoengineering tourniquet? This new effect adds to the list of drawbacks already associated with artificial cooling plans such as the one involving aircraft sprays into the stratosphere. Such plans leave carbon accumulating in the system and acidifying the oceans. These geo-engineering solutions probably could not cope with the massive amounts of carbon dioxide released if all recoverable fossil fuels are burned. Still worse, artificial cooling increases the risk of even greater harm. It would have to be sustained annually for a century or two until enough of the carbon dioxide had finally seeped into the ocean depths. If artificial cooling were interrupted by war, economic collapse, or some other crisis, nearly all of the pent-up climate change would be unleashed in the space of a few short years, hitting some future generation when it is already struggling. There are ideas around to actually remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. These would be great if they worked, but to me they look like impractical pipe dreams. Artificial cooling is by contrast cheap, relatively
[geo] 400 ppm: Get used to it
Lots of hand-wringing here from our fellow scientists (below), but no mention of Plan B's - Scientists say that unless far greater efforts are made soon, the goal of limiting the warming will become impossible without severe economic disruption. “If you’re looking to stave off climate perturbations that I don’t believe our culture is ready to adapt to, then significant reductions in CO2 emissions have to occur right away...” “It feels like the inevitable march toward disaster” If mainstream scientists don't even raise the possibility of climate intervention, then the public and the decisionmakers surely won't. Together with the PCAST weighin: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2013/03/22/pcast-releases-new-climate-report guess it's official - adapt to 400 ppm and/or suffer the consequences. Hope those chemtrailers and some GE ethicists are pleased - party while you still can. -Greg Heat-Trapping Gas Passes Milestone, Raising FearsBy JUSTIN GILLIS NYTimesThe level of the most important heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere, carbon dioxide, has passed a long-feared milestone, scientists reported Friday, reaching a concentration not seen on the earth for millions of years. Scientific instruments showed that the gas had reached an average daily level above 400 parts per million — just an odometer moment in one sense, but also a sobering reminder that decades of efforts to bring human-produced emissions under control are faltering. The best available evidence suggests the amount of the gas in the air has not been this high for at least three million years, before humans evolved, and scientists believe the rise portends large changes in the climate and the level of the sea. “It symbolizes that so far we have failed miserably in tackling this problem,” said Pieter P. Tans, who runs the monitoring program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that reported the new reading. Ralph Keeling, who runs another monitoring program at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said a continuing rise could be catastrophic. “It means we are quickly losing the possibility of keeping the climate below what people thought were possibly tolerable thresholds,” he said. Virtually every automobile ride, every plane trip and, in most places, every flip of a light switch adds carbon dioxide to the air, and relatively little money is being spent to find and deploy alternative technologies. China is now the largest emitter, but Americans have been consuming fossil fuels extensively for far longer, and experts say the United States is more responsible than any other nation for the high level. The new measurement came from analyzers atop Mauna Loa, the volcano on the big island of Hawaii that has long been ground zero for monitoring the worldwide trend on carbon dioxide, or CO2. Devices there sample clean, crisp air that has blown thousands of miles across the Pacific Ocean, producing a record of rising carbon dioxide levels that has been closely tracked for half a century. Carbon dioxide above 400 parts per million was first seen in the Arctic last year, and had also spiked above that level in hourly readings at Mauna Loa. But the average reading for an entire day surpassed that level at Mauna Loa for the first time in the 24 hours that ended at 8 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday. The two monitoring programs use slightly different protocols; NOAA reported an average for the period of 400.03 parts per million, while Scripps reported 400.08. Carbon dioxide rises and falls on a seasonal cycle, and the level will dip below 400 this summer as leaf growth in the Northern Hemisphere pulls about 10 billion tons of carbon out of the air. But experts say that will be a brief reprieve — the moment is approaching when no measurement of the ambient air anywhere on earth, in any season, will produce a reading below 400. “It feels like the inevitable march toward disaster,” said Maureen E. Raymo, a scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, a unit of Columbia University. From studying air bubbles trapped in Antarctic ice, scientists know that going back 800,000 years, the carbon dioxide level oscillated in a tight band, from about 180 parts per million in the depths of ice ages to about 280 during the warm periods between. The evidence shows that global temperatures and CO2 levels are tightly linked. For the entire period of human civilization, roughly 8,000 years, the carbon dioxide level was relatively stable near that upper bound. But the burning of fossil fuels has caused a 41 percent increase in the heat-trapping gas since the Industrial Revolution, a mere geological instant, and scientists say the climate is beginning to react, though they expect far larger changes in the future. Indirect measurements suggest that the last time the carbon dioxide level was this high was at least three million years ago, during an epoch called the Pliocene.
Re: [geo] SECURITY UPDATE : Chemtrails/conspiracy rally planned for 'Hack the Sky' Caldeira talk.
In his 2010 book* Requiem For a Species *Clive accepts and cites the Alice Bows/Kevin Anderson view that civilization as we know it is almost certainly committed as of now to an unstable 4 degree warming this century, and that change of that magnitude threatens its existence. (Anderson explains his views here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RInrvSjW90U. Clive himself sums up his 2010 book from minute 6:45 in this video, i.e. here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mccKiZ9AfE) The surprise for me, given that Clive believes it likely that civilization has already committed itself to destruction is the fact that despite his claim to the contrary, he really does seem to oppose all research into geoE. Otherwise he would be putting forward a proposal to deal with his concerns rather than endlessly repeating his list of questions in any forum he can find. Greg Rau wrote: Clive... made a startling prediction that, given the relatively low cost, he anticipated that SRM will be done in 30-40 years by one or more developing countries desperate to counter the climate change wreaked on them by the developed world's CO2. That seems an admission that more conventional actions won't work by then, -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
Re: [geo] Why geoengineering is not ‘global public good’, and why it's ethically misleading to frame it as one
Dear Emily, IPCC has used standard definitions of these terms for decades. They are jargon, but the community accepts these definitions, rather than a broader dictionary definition. Mitigation means reducing emissions that cause global warming. Alan Robock Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor Editor, Reviews of Geophysics Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751 Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock http://twitter.com/AlanRobock On 5/11/2013 11:54 AM, Emily L-B wrote: Hi I would call SRM 'mitigation' (ie it reduces the Earth's temp from ghg pollution) like double glazing mitigates noise pollution from a motorway. Neither address the source of the problem, but they mitigate one of the problems. It could be called Symptom mitigation. CDR is also mitigation - reducing the pollution directly once emitted. Reducing emissions (what NGOs call mitigation) is mitigating the cause of the pollution. Mitigating climate impacts, indirect impacts and transboundary impacts on fauna and flora are a legal duty for any country with legislation like NEPA in the USA and the EIA directive in the EU. Analogous legislation exists elsewhere too. Should we be litigating any company with big projects covered by theses and countries not complying? Any lawyers on the list? Best wishes, Emily. Sent from my BlackBerry *From: * Ken Caldeira kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu *Sender: * geoengineering@googlegroups.com *Date: *Sat, 11 May 2013 08:26:37 -0700 *To: *andrew.lock...@gmail.com *ReplyTo: * kcalde...@gmail.com *Cc: *geoengineeringgeoengineering@googlegroups.com *Subject: *Re: [geo] Why geoengineering is not ‘global public good’, and why it's ethically misleading to frame it as one The definition of a pure public good in this paper is: First, a pure public good is a good that satisfies two conditions. It is nonrival: one person’s consumption of the good does not inhibit another person’s consumption. It is also nonexcludable: once it is available to some, others cannot be prevented from consuming it. Gardiner argues that we already know that everyone cannot benefit from solar geoengineering. This seems to be an empirical claim that is possibly true but not well-supported by quantitative analysis. It is often said that there will be winners and losers but that is a claim that has not been established. In most analyses based on commonly-used metrics of cost, everyone benefits by some level of solar geoengineering [cf. RIcke et al, attached]. Gardiner also imagines scenarios of coercion which, while possible are merely speculation. It may be premature to assert that we solar geoengineering is a public good, but it also seems premature to assert that it is not. On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 12:55 AM, Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com mailto:andrew.lock...@gmail.com wrote: Why geoengineering is not ‘global public good’, and why it's ethically misleading to frame it as one http://t.co/istDiUqRoA Abstract In early policy work, climate engineering is often described as a global public good. This paper argues that the paradigm example of geoengineering—stratospheric sulfate injection (hereafter ‘SSI’)—does not fit the canonical technical definition of a global public good, and that more relaxed versions are unhelpful. More importantly, it claims that, regardless of the technicalities, the public good framing is seriously misleading, in part because it arbitrarily marginalizes ethical concerns. Both points suggest that more clarity is needed about the aims of geoengineering policy—and especially governance—and that this requires special attention to ethics. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com mailto:geoengineering%2bunsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com mailto:geoengineering@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to
Re: [geo] Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help - Steve Sherwood
Emily: Good point. It is also true that at 400 ppm the global temperature has not increased by several degrees as it did way back (temperature units not given) yet 3-5 million years ago the same concentration presumably produced a much larger temperature increase if the units are Celsius. So there is an inconsistency. The basic problem is that it is not yet clear how the global temperature increase and the CO2 concentration increase track and in fact the the tracking constant for current CO2 warming seems to vary with time although few doubt there is a monotonic relationship; i.e.. they both go up but not in step and accurate prediction may prove to be well into the future. From current data CO2 increase would appear to not be the only temperature driver. --gene - Original Message - From: Emily L-B em...@lewis-brown.net To: andrew lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com, geoengineering geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 9:26:45 AM Subject: Re: [geo] Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help - Steve Sherwood I find it hard to read past a sentence when it is fundamentally flawed: the word 'instead' should read 'as well as'! 'Instead of reducing carbon emissions, let’s tinker' How frustrating! Best wishes all, Emily Sent from my BlackBerry -Original Message- From: Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com Sender: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 14:00:24 To: geoengineeringgeoengineering@googlegroups.com Reply-To: andrew.lock...@gmail.com Subject: [geo] Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help - Steve Sherwood http://theconversation.com/carbon-dioxide-hits-a-new-high-but-geo-engineering-wont-help-13840 Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help Steve Sherwood Director, Climate Change Research Centre at University of New South Wales This week, carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere finally crossed the 400 parts-per-million mark. The last time that happened was 3-5 million years ago during the Pliocene epoch, several million years before the evolution of modern humans. During this period the planet was 3-4 degrees warmer and sea levels 5-40m higher than today. Now, however, our activities are adding this gas hundreds or thousands of times faster than the natural sources that caused climate to change over Earth’s history. The concentration is measured at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, and is averaged on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. CO2 has increased since 1800 from under 300ppm, and has rapidly increased since 1950. So what should we be doing about this? One idea is starting to get a lot of attention. Instead of reducing carbon emissions, let’s tinker with the system to cool the planet off – a type of geo-engineering. For example, we might be able to lower the temperature of the planet by several degrees by flying a small fleet of aircraft in the stratosphere, spraying sulphur-containing gases. This would form a mist that reflects some sunlight back to space – maybe enough to offset many decades' worth of greenhouse gas emissions, at least as far as the global temperature is concerned. If only it were that simple. Geo-engineering is not a miracle cure for climate change. It is more like a tourniquet. It may save the patient’s life as a last option, but that life will never be the same. Doesn’t CO2 just heat things up? Recent studies, including this one published last week, and to which I contributed, show that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels would alter our world in ways that have nothing to do with global warming at the earth’s surface. Carbon dioxide affects climate by itself, and without its warming influence. Sound strange? CO2 does this by interfering with natural energy flows within the atmosphere. This in turn affects how the air circulates, and shifts rainfall patterns. It also reduces total global precipitation. While the overall change in precipitation is less than that caused by global warming, the regional shifts in precipitation are comparable. In short, some areas that were used to lots of rain will likely get less. Others will get more. What does this mean? A few isolated skeptics claim that our climate has strong negative feedbacks. Instead of temperature increasing indefinitely, changes in climate like increased cloud cover may act to cool the planet. Even if these far-fetched claims proved correct on a large scale, the new studies now show that humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions would still alter global rainfall patterns, albeit less severely. Negative feedbacks, even if they existed, would not stop this. Neither would artificial cooling of the planet. The geoengineering tourniquet? This new effect adds to the list of drawbacks already associated with artificial cooling plans such as the one involving aircraft sprays into the stratosphere.
Re: [geo] Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help - Steve Sherwood
List and 3 ccs : I just came across today this 2 minute video that addresses (demolishes?):the constant recent temperature argument http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_0JZRIHFtk I don't have the background to know if the modifications were done correctly, but there must be many on this list who could comment. Does such a modified (now non-flat) experimental temperature data line say anything about the capabilities of climate modelers and/or about climate sensitivity? Ron - Original Message - From: euggor...@comcast.net To: em...@lewis-brown.net Cc: andrew lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com, geoengineering geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 10:53:05 AM Subject: Re: [geo] Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help - Steve Sherwood Emily: Good point. It is also true that at 400 ppm the global temperature has not increased by several degrees as it did way back (temperature units not given) yet 3-5 million years ago the same concentration presumably produced a much larger temperature increase if the units are Celsius. So there is an inconsistency. The basic problem is that it is not yet clear how the global temperature increase and the CO2 concentration increase track and in fact the the tracking constant for current CO2 warming seems to vary with time although few doubt there is a monotonic relationship; i.e.. they both go up but not in step and accurate prediction may prove to be well into the future. From current data CO2 increase would appear to not be the only temperature driver. --gene - Original Message - From: Emily L-B em...@lewis-brown.net To: andrew lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com, geoengineering geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 9:26:45 AM Subject: Re: [geo] Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help - Steve Sherwood I find it hard to read past a sentence when it is fundamentally flawed: the word 'instead' should read 'as well as'! 'Instead of reducing carbon emissions, let’s tinker' How frustrating! Best wishes all, Emily Sent from my BlackBerry -Original Message- From: Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com Sender: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 14:00:24 To: geoengineeringgeoengineering@googlegroups.com Reply-To: andrew.lock...@gmail.com Subject: [geo] Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help - Steve Sherwood http://theconversation.com/carbon-dioxide-hits-a-new-high-but-geo-engineering-wont-help-13840 Carbon dioxide hits a new high, but geo-engineering won’t help Steve Sherwood Director, Climate Change Research Centre at University of New South Wales This week, carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere finally crossed the 400 parts-per-million mark. The last time that happened was 3-5 million years ago during the Pliocene epoch, several million years before the evolution of modern humans. During this period the planet was 3-4 degrees warmer and sea levels 5-40m higher than today. Now, however, our activities are adding this gas hundreds or thousands of times faster than the natural sources that caused climate to change over Earth’s history. The concentration is measured at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii, and is averaged on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. CO2 has increased since 1800 from under 300ppm, and has rapidly increased since 1950. So what should we be doing about this? One idea is starting to get a lot of attention. Instead of reducing carbon emissions, let’s tinker with the system to cool the planet off – a type of geo-engineering. For example, we might be able to lower the temperature of the planet by several degrees by flying a small fleet of aircraft in the stratosphere, spraying sulphur-containing gases. This would form a mist that reflects some sunlight back to space – maybe enough to offset many decades' worth of greenhouse gas emissions, at least as far as the global temperature is concerned. If only it were that simple. Geo-engineering is not a miracle cure for climate change. It is more like a tourniquet. It may save the patient’s life as a last option, but that life will never be the same. Doesn’t CO2 just heat things up? Recent studies, including this one published last week, and to which I contributed, show that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels would alter our world in ways that have nothing to do with global warming at the earth’s surface. Carbon dioxide affects climate by itself, and without its warming influence. Sound strange? CO2 does this by interfering with natural energy flows within the atmosphere. This in turn affects how the air circulates, and shifts rainfall patterns. It also reduces total global precipitation. While the overall change in precipitation is less than that caused by global warming, the regional shifts in precipitation are comparable. In short, some areas
Re: [geo] Why geoengineering is not ‘global public good’, and why it's ethically misleading to frame it as one
Alan cc list and Emily Shucks. I agree with you about the SRM form of geo not being mitigation. But I was hoping that this list might agree that the mitigation term reducing could/should be interpreted broadly enough to include removing. The reason to not do so is what? Ron - Original Message - From: Alan Robock rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu To: em...@lewis-brown.net Cc: geoengineering geoengineering@googlegroups.com Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 11:19:27 AM Subject: Re: [geo] Why geoengineering is not ‘global public good’, and why it's ethically misleading to frame it as one Dear Emily, IPCC has used standard definitions of these terms for decades. They are jargon, but the community accepts these definitions, rather than a broader dictionary definition. Mitigation means reducing emissions that cause global warming. Alan Robock Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor Editor, Reviews of Geophysics Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751 Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644 14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock http://twitter.com/AlanRobock On 5/11/2013 11:54 AM, Emily L-B wrote: Hi I would call SRM 'mitigation' (ie it reduces the Earth's temp from ghg pollution) like double glazing mitigates noise pollution from a motorway. Neither address the source of the problem, but they mitigate one of the problems. It could be called Symptom mitigation. CDR is also mitigation - reducing the pollution directly once emitted. Reducing emissions (what NGOs call mitigation) is mitigating the cause of the pollution. Mitigating climate impacts, indirect impacts and transboundary impacts on fauna and flora are a legal duty for any country with legislation like NEPA in the USA and the EIA directive in the EU. Analogous legislation exists elsewhere too. Should we be litigating any company with big projects covered by theses and countries not complying? Any lawyers on the list? Best wishes, Emily. Sent from my BlackBerry From: Ken Caldeira kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu Sender: geoengineering@googlegroups.com Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 08:26:37 -0700 To: andrew.lock...@gmail.com ReplyTo: kcalde...@gmail.com Cc: geoengineering geoengineering@googlegroups.com Subject: Re: [geo] Why geoengineering is not ‘global public good’, and why it's ethically misleading to frame it as one The definition of a pure public good in this paper is: First, a pure public good is a good that satisfies two conditions. It is nonrival: one person’s consumption of the good does not inhibit another person’s consumption. It is also nonexcludable: once it is available to some, others cannot be prevented from consuming it. Gardiner argues that we already know that everyone cannot benefit from solar geoengineering. This seems to be an empirical claim that is possibly true but not well-supported by quantitative analysis. It is often said that there will be winners and losers but that is a claim that has not been established. In most analyses based on commonly-used metrics of cost, everyone benefits by some level of solar geoengineering [cf. RIcke et al, attached]. Gardiner also imagines scenarios of coercion which, while possible are merely speculation. It may be premature to assert that we solar geoengineering is a public good, but it also seems premature to assert that it is not. On Sat, May 11, 2013 at 12:55 AM, Andrew Lockley andrew.lock...@gmail.com wrote: blockquote Why geoengineering is not ‘global public good’, and why it's ethically misleading to frame it as one http://t.co/istDiUqRoA Abstract In early policy work, climate engineering is often described as a global public good. This paper argues that the paradigm example of geoengineering—stratospheric sulfate injection (hereafter ‘SSI’)—does not fit the canonical technical definition of a global public good, and that more relaxed versions are unhelpful. More importantly, it claims that, regardless of the technicalities, the public good framing is seriously misleading, in part because it arbitrarily marginalizes ethical concerns. Both points suggest that more clarity is needed about the aims of geoengineering policy—and especially governance—and that this requires special attention to ethics. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups geoengineering group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to geoengineering+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com . To post to this group, send email to geoengineering@googlegroups.com . Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en . For more options, visit
Re: [geo] Why geoengineering is not Œglobal public good¹, and why it's ethically misleading to frame it as one
This has been my way of thinking about this as well. And this way the
options for the future continue to be a combination of mitigation,
adaptation, and suffering, with the last likely to become more and more
evident, given the slow pace of (and vested interest opposition to)
mitigation and the limits and challenges of adaptation.
Mike MacCracken
On 5/11/13 2:58 PM, Ken Caldeira kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu wrote:
Solar geoengineering is arguably a form of adaptation, which is defined as:
Adaptation to climate change refers to adjustment in natural or human systems
in response to actual or expected climatic stimuli or their effects, which
moderates harm or exploits beneficial opportunities.
Carbon dioxide removal is arguably an enhanced carbon dioxide sink and thus a
form of mitigation, which is defined as:
An anthropogenic intervention to reduce the sources or enhance the sinks of
greenhouse gases.
These are definitions out of IPCC, 2001.
On Saturday, May 11, 2013, wrote:
Alan cc list and Emily
Shucks. I agree with you about the SRM form of geo not being
mitigation.
But I was hoping that this list might agree that the mitigation term
reducing could/should be interpreted broadly enough to include removing.
The reason to not do so is what?
Ron
From: Alan Robock rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu');
To: em...@lewis-brown.net javascript:_e({}, 'cvml',
'em...@lewis-brown.net');
Cc: geoengineering geoengineering@googlegroups.com javascript:_e({},
'cvml', 'geoengineering@googlegroups.com');
Sent: Saturday, May 11, 2013 11:19:27 AM
Subject: Re: [geo] Why geoengineering is not Œglobal public good¹, and why
it's ethically misleading to frame it as one
Dear Emily,
IPCC has used standard definitions of these terms for decades. They are
jargon, but the community accepts these definitions, rather than a broader
dictionary definition. Mitigation means reducing emissions that cause global
warming.
Alan Robock
Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor
Editor, Reviews of Geophysics
Director, Meteorology Undergraduate Program
Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction
Department of Environmental Sciences Phone: +1-848-932-5751
Rutgers University Fax: +1-732-932-8644
14 College Farm Road E-mail: rob...@envsci.rutgers.edu
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-8551 USA http://envsci.rutgers.edu/~robock
http://twitter.com/AlanRobock
On 5/11/2013 11:54 AM, Emily L-B wrote:
Hi
I would call SRM 'mitigation' (ie it reduces the Earth's temp from ghg
pollution) like double glazing mitigates noise pollution from a motorway.
Neither address the source of the problem, but they mitigate one of the
problems. It could be called Symptom mitigation.
CDR is also mitigation - reducing the pollution directly once emitted.
Reducing emissions (what NGOs call mitigation) is mitigating the cause of
the pollution.
Mitigating climate impacts, indirect impacts and transboundary impacts on
fauna and flora are a legal duty for any country with legislation like NEPA
in the USA and the EIA directive in the EU. Analogous legislation exists
elsewhere too.
Should we be litigating any company with big projects covered by theses and
countries not complying?
Any lawyers on the list?
Best wishes,
Emily.
Sent from my BlackBerry
From: Ken Caldeira kcalde...@carnegiescience.edu
Sender: geoengineering@googlegroups.com
Date: Sat, 11 May 2013 08:26:37 -0700
To: andrew.lock...@gmail.com
ReplyTo: kcalde...@gmail.com
Cc: geoengineeringgeoengineering@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [geo] Why geoengineering is not Œglobal public good¹, and why
it's ethically misleading to frame it as one
The definition of a pure public good in this paper is:
First, a pure public good is a good that satisfies two conditions. It is
nonrival: one person¹s
consumption of the good does not inhibit another person¹s consumption. It is
also
nonexcludable: once it is available to some, others cannot be prevented from
consuming it.
Gardiner argues that we already know that everyone cannot benefit from solar
geoengineering. This seems to be an empirical claim that is possibly true
but not well-supported by quantitative analysis. It is often said that there
will be winners and losers but that is a claim that has not been
established. In most analyses based on commonly-used metrics of cost,
everyone benefits by some level of solar geoengineering [cf. RIcke et al,
attached].
Gardiner also imagines scenarios of coercion which, while possible are
merely speculation.
It may be premature to assert that we solar
--
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